E. M. Forster: A Life I. (töredék) [antikvár]

i A Birth and a DeathE. M. Forster's last book of substance was a biography of his great-aunt, Marianne Thornton. She was a relative on his father's side; and by the time that he wrote the book he had come to love her memory and to be curious about her influence, and that of his father's family generally, upon his career. This represented a shift of allegiance. He once wrote1 that a 'curious duel' is fought over every baby. It proved so in his own case; and all through his early years he felt himself to belong, not to the wealthy Thorntons and Forsters, but to his mother's family, the socially obscure and penniless Whichelos. It is with them that I shall begin my narrative.His maternal grandfather was a drawing-master named Henry Mayle Whichelo. H. M. Whichelo was born in Lambeth in 1826, and for the length of his brief career was employed in the Stockwell and Stepney grammar schools, where his father had taught before him. He came from a family of artists. His father, stepbrother and an uncle all made their careers in painting or drawing; indeed his uncle, John Whichelo, was a water-colour painter of some celebrity, receiving in 1812 the title of 'Marine Painter to the Prince Regent'. Other Whichelos were in the navy. And the vocations of painting and the sea were combined in another great-great-uncle of Forster's, Richard Whichelo, who was Fleet paymaster aboard the Victory and painter of a famous portrait of Nelson.The curious name 'Whichelo' is generally thought to be a corruption of 'Richelieu', and some of the Whichelos used the Richelieu crest and motto, though a cousin of Forster's made not very con-1 Where Angels Fear to Tread, Chapter 1.